While Google has expanded its US-based autonomous vehicle trials to include both Texas and Kirkland, WA since its launch in Mountain View, it seems the company is being courted by another city across the pond. London transport officials are said to be in “active discussions” with Google to convince the tech giant to test its driverless cars in England’s capital…
Google’s self-driving cars are drawing a lot of attention and conversation online. Perhaps one of the biggest concerns from regular people like you and I is how safe they are. But as a recent video and blog post shows, you’re seemingly infinitely far more likely to be hit by another driver not paying attention, than your car malfunctioning and crashing in to someone else. But why do Google’s cars get hit so much?
Chris Urmson posted a really interesting article about what it’s like being hit by another car, driven by a human, while taking a ride in a self-driving Googlemobile. Urmson notes that the autonomous cars are being hit “surprisingly often”, despite their fancy array of sensors, processors and algorithms.
Google has launched a new website that will offer monthly updates on its driverless car project including reporting accidents the vehicles have been involved in.
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Virginia has okayed more than 70 miles of road space in the northern part of the state for testing self-driving cars, local media reports. This makes Virginia only one of a few states that allow autonomous automobile testing on public roads — California and Florida being the largest — giving Google and automakers more terrain to test their self-driving cars.
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Google’s self-driving test cars have been involved in a total of three fender-benders since being licensed for use on public roads last September, a new AP report revealed today. All four of the accidents have been at speeds of 10mph or lower, so there hasn’t been any serious damage done yet.
One other autonomous car created by Delphi Automotive has been involved in a low-speed collision. The big difference between the two companies’ situations is that while Delphi only has two cars on the road right now, Google is currently running fifty of them. Strictly speaking in terms of percentages, Google has had much better luck.